quotation thoughtfulness

Danny-boy watched her study the castle. The setting sun painted half her face with red light; the other half was in shadow. Her hands clasped each other loosely. "The waves will destroy it," she said.

Danny-boy sat on the sand beside her, "You sound sad."

She shook her head, an automatic and meaningless denial. "It's beautiful. Why build anything so beautiful just so it can be destroyed? If we hadn't come here, no one would have ever seen it."

"Sometimes, you make things that won't last just for the pleasure of making them," Danny-boy said. He watched a wave take a bite out of the castle wall. "You do it for yourself, not for anybody else. When you make something beautiful, you change You put something of yourself into the thing you make. You're a different person when you're done." Another wave washed up against the castle wall, nibbling it away.

"Is that why you're painting the bridge?"

"That's part of it, I guess."

"What's the other part?"

"When you change yourself, you change the world. Make it more your own."